CRI听力:Haiti Bags

An American entrepreneur has started a handbag business in Haiti to help local women become more business savvy. They reuse colorful chip and cookie bags to make the handbags. Our reporter, Huangrui, has more.




These handbags are made of recycled chip and cookie bags. They are produced by a group of local Haitian women under the supervision of Kevin McCarthy.

The American woman has always liked to experiment with textiles and fibers. She started her Rara Bags business in Haiti two years ago. The colorful patterns of the handbags' come from a simple but powerful combination of old chip bags.(www.hXen.com)

In one corner of McCarthy's home are half a dozen large trash bags full of chip bags. Some she gets directly from the manufacturer, but she also pays street children to collect discarded ones.

McCarthy carefully opens one chip bag to explain how her handbags are made.

"This is the biggest piece of plastic that you can get from this bag. So the inside, the whole piece actually, we'll wash in bleach and laundry detergent."

Most of Rara Bags' employees work from home, but they are free to come to McCarthy's house for advice or just to work alongside other women. The company pays per item and does not have a permanent staff.

Besides McCarthy and her production manager, there is a group of 30 women who work on a regular basis. The number of workers reaches 50 whenever demand for the handbags hits a peak.

"Rara" is a Creole term that refers to street musicians who play musical instruments made from recycled materials during Easter.

The daughter of two U.S. Foreign Service officials, McCarthy spent her childhood in Africa where her parents worked in Mali, Burkina Faso and Kenya. In these countries she discovered the creativity of the women who made hand-woven mattresses or hats from organic fiber.

The process of making a Rara Bag is quite simple. Once the materials are thoroughly cleaned, the bags are cut into long strips which are hand-woven diagonally into the main piece of plastic that forms the skeleton of the handbag.

McCarthy decided to set up her business shortly after she arrived in Haiti when she immediately realized that a lack of jobs was one of the most pressing problems for the Caribbean country.

She made an initial investment of 3,000 U.S. dollars to get a business license and buy two sewing machines to make the handbags' inner linings, which are made of fabric scraps from Haitian textile manufacturers.

McCarthy says her goal was to set up a business that would be run by Haitian.

"When I started this project I had this bigger goal of traveling around the world and starting sustainable crafts businesses in different countries, and getting them to a point where they could function without me, without government money (and) without charity money, and to train people how to run businesses, and train people how to come up with a product and maintain quality."

Rara Bags has expanded its product line to include sandals, placemats and Christmas ornaments as well as all type of bags.

These women are sewing heart-shaped Christmas ornaments for this year's holiday season. The company has just received an order from the United States for 2,500 Christmas ornaments that must be ready by the end of November.

Although Rara Bags mainly sells its products to various boutiques in Port-au-Prince, McCarthy says the products are more well-received by foreigners than locals since recycling is not a priority in Haiti.

But she also stresses the fact that her business is not just a charity project. That has been her main challenge in the past two years—to convey to her employees the idea that they must produce "a good finished product that appeals to the buyer."

McCarthy says such a concept is unheard of in Haiti, which has no major industries, virtually no trade, and little domestic demand for goods.

But her idea has stuck, and the results are paying off.

For China Drive, I'm Huang Rui.